Have you asked yourself if your organization needs a social media marketing strategy or if you need a presence on the various social networks? The answer is yes, but what does that mean, and how to you get started? Are you going to hire an agency to help you (if so, I know of a great one)? Are you going to have someone in your marketing department handle it? Are you going to hire an intern? Exactly what kind of effort is this going to take?

Before you sweat these questions, start really simple. First, find someone in your organization to get the ball rolling. If you’re asking these questions, and reading this post, there is a really good chance that someone should be you. If you’re concerned that your not experienced enough with social media and social networks, don’t worry, this stuff isn’t rocket science. Read up on the subject a bit; you’re interested on some level, so getting into a few articles or blog posts shouldn’t be too tough. Read John’s post on Twitter strategies, find some info on Facebook pages through Google, and spend sometime lurking on these networks and observing participants and other organizations’ efforts. Create personal accounts and spend a week watching how these communities operate, seeing how people communicate, and seeing how other companies distribute information.

Then what? Then decide how you want to first approach this. Do you operate a small boutique and maybe have list of email subscribers? Then maybe you just want to setup a Twitter account, announce it to your subscribers and walk-in customers, and then use it as a way to communicate with them a bit more frequently than your emails. Tweet when you have a new product or line in the boutique, or when an important visitor comes by, or for special offers. Maybe you run a large restaurant. Setup a Facebook page and a Twitter account and let followers and fans know about your daily specials, or maybe make follower-only and fan-only promotions. Maybe you just started a multi-million dollar apparel company and you need to figure out how to align your social media marketing your brand image and your other marketing efforts. If that is the case, then you should signup on Twitter and quickly snag the username that matches your brand name, if it is available, and then you should call SwellPath.

The point of all of this is that it’s time to get involved! If you’ve been in business for awhile, think back to what your organization’s first website looked like. Probably a lot more rudimentary than it does now. But you had to start somewhere, so you had someone put up some pages, and you created something for your customer to see. Of course there is a lot to be said for doing something right from the get-go, and getting solid, professional consultation. If your organization is big enough that you can afford this, and you have a reputation that needs to be carefully handled, than by all means you should pursue a qualified agency like SwellPath to help you carefully develop and execute your strategy. But if you’re a mom-n-pop, or simply a small organization that hasn’t been tremendously dependent on your online efforts in the past, than just jump in and start somewhere. Getting your feet wet will help you figure out what the landscape looks like, and help give you some ideas for how you can have a bigger space in it.